The Silkie

by A. E. van Vogt

  She said softly, 'I never realised that a Silkie could have so much feeling for his child, whom he has not seen since birth. After all, I too had to give him up. My deconditioning took.'

  Cemp was irritated. 'It's not personal,' he said curtly.

  She said with sudden emotion, 'Then you know the reason very well. This boy evidently has a method of concealing his thoughts and of reading minds — according to your own account — that even you could not penetrate. With such a person, the Special People will not have their historic protection. It becomes a matter of policy.

  'In making my report,' said Cemp, 'I advised a five-year study and reeducation program for the boy. That's the way it's going to be.'

  She seemed not to hear. As if thinking out loud, she said, 'Silkies were mutated by humans, on the basis of the great biological discoveries of the last half of the twentieth century. When the basic chemical unit of life, DNP, was isolated, major advances in life forms, other than those naturally spawned in Nature, became possible. Because the first transformations were to the fish stage, the new beings were called Silkies, after an old song.

  'But it had to be done carefully. The Silkie could not be permitted to breed as he pleased. So his genes, which endow him with so many marvelous senses and abilities, also contain certain limitations. He can be a man. a fish, a Silkie at will. So long as he does it by body control, he has nearly all his Silkie abilities in any of these forms. But every nine and a half years he has to become a human being again, in order to mate. It's built into him, where he can't interfere with it.

  'Silkies who long ago tried to eliminate this phase of the cycle were executed. At the time of such a compulsive change to human form, he loses all his Silkie abilities and becomes fallibly human. That's the great hold we have over him. Then we can punish him for anything illegal he did as a Silkie. Another hold is that there are no female Silkies. If the issue of a Silkie mating with a woman of the Special People is a girl, she is not a Silkie. That, too, is built into his genes —'

  She broke off, then went on, 'The Special People are a tiny, tiny portion of the main human stream who, it was discovered, had a spontaneous ability to read the minds of Silkies. They used this to establish administrative ascendancy while there were still only a few Silkies, and thus they protected themselves and the human race from beings who would otherwise have overwhelmed them.'

  She finished in a puzzled tone, 'You've always agreed that such protection was necessary, for human beings to survive. Have you changed your mind?' When Cemp did not reply, she urged, 'Why don't you go to the Silkie Authority and talk to Charley Baxter? A single conversation with him will get you further than any rebellion.' She added quickly, 'Tem is there. So you'll have to go there anyway. Please, Nat.'

  It wasn't so much, then, that Cemp agreed with what she said — he thought of her suggestion very distinctly as offering a way to get inside the building. But he was not too surprised as his helijet came down on the roof at Silkie Authority to see Charley Baxter waiting for him, tall, rather good-looking, thin, unusually pale.

  As they rode down in an elevator, Cemp felt himself pass through an energy screen that instantly sealed off the pulsations from the outside world. And that was normal enough except for the force that was driving the screen. He sensed that the power backing it was enormous enough to protect a city, or even a substantial part of the planet.

  Cemp glanced questioningly at Baxter and met a pair of sober, serious eyes. The man said quietly, 'At this point, you may read me.'

  What he read in Baxter's mind was that his own radiogram about Tem had caused a hasty examination of Tem's record. As a result, they had decided that the boy was normal and. that something very serious had happened to Cemp.

  'At no time,' said Baxter, 'has your son been in danger. Now, take a look at that TV picture. Which one is Tem? One is.'

  They had walked from the elevator into a large room. On the TV screen on one wall was a street scene. Several boys were approaching what must have been a hidden camera, for they showed no awareness of its presence.

  Cemp's gaze flicked across the strange faces. 'Never saw any of them before,' he said.

  'The boy to your right is your son,' said Baxter.

  Cemp looked, then turned and stared at Baxter. And because his brain had energy relationships that bypassed mere neuron connections, he got the whole picture in a single flash of understanding. That instantaneous comprehension included analytical awareness of how his duty to protect all Silkie children had been skillfully twisted by his pseudo-son. It leaped on to a lightning examination of the energy level that had signaled him. Almost immediately, he realised that the signal was the only direct contact that had been made by the boy on the V ship. In every other way, the fraudulent Tem had merely been recipient of signals.

  He grew conscious of Baxter's bright eyes watching him. The man asked breathlessly, 'Think we can do anything?'

  It was too soon to answer that. Cemp was gratefully realising how he had been protected by the Special People. It seemed to him that if he had suspected the truth at any moment before being taken behind the energy screen that now guarded him — the false Tem would probably have tried to annihilate him.

  Baxter was speaking again. 'You sit down here, and let's see what the computer makes of the one signal you received.'

  The computer extrapolated three structural frames that might fit the false Tem. Cemp and Baxter studied the coded messages with amazement, for they had not actually considered anything beyond an unusual V frame.

  All three formulated structures were alien. A quick analysis established that two of the three did not require secrecy on the part of so powerful a being as the invader undoubtedly was. Therefore, the third frame, involving a gruesome form of esoteric sex climaxed by the ritual murder of one partner by the other, like spiders, was the most likely.

  Baxter's voice had in it the desire not to believe. 'That picture of their needing a lot of love objects could that be real?' He finished in a subdued tone, 'I'll alert all Silkies, mobilise our other forces — but can you do anything at once?'

  Cemp, who had already adjusted his sensory system to include all three alien frames, was tense and afraid. He said, 'I ask myself where he would go, and of course, it would be to my home. Do you think Joanne would have got there yet? Was she supposed to head somewhere else?'

  He saw that Baxter was shaking his head....

  Cemp hurried through a door that led to a wide balcony, transformed to Silkie, and did a partial cut-off of gravity combined with control of magnetic force lines ... a man in a far greater hurry than he had ever been in before.

  * * *

  VI

  HE ENTERED the large house by the sea in his human form, the better to run the last few yards and maneuver in corridors. And because he had adjusted to the alien sensory structure, his arrival was only partially signaled.

  He found Joanne in the master bedroom, half-undressed.

  She had never seemed more attractive. Her smile, warm and inviting and friendly, drew him. She was in some state of excitement that communicated itself to him, stirring an impulse so basic that it was as if a fine, translucent sheath dropped over his senses, blurring his view of reality. The woman, almost luminescent in a fleshy radiance, lay on the pink bed, and his whole being focused on her. For a long moment, nothing else existed. They were two people intensely in love.

  Breathless, astounded by that hideous instant power, Cemp put his thought on the possible fate of the real Joanne, put his attention on fear for her and broke the spell.

  The rage, hate, and violence that had been building up in him broke through.

  But the magnetically controlled radiation that Cemp launched at the creature crackled harmlessly against a magnetically controlled energy screen. Frothing, he plunged at the being, grabbed at him with his bare hands.

  For seconds they grappled, the almost nude woman and the wholly naked Cemp. Then Cemp was flung back by muscles that were ten times s
tronger than his own.

  He bounded to his feet, but he was sobered, thinking again. He began to consider the entire problem of Earth in relation to this creature and the threat it represented.

  The duplicate of Joanne was changing. The body in front of him became that of a man with the frilly clothes of a woman's underdress still draped around his hips, but there was nothing feminine in his manner. Eyes blazing with the infinite violence potential of the male, the entity locked gazes with Cemp.

  Cemp was feeling a desperate anxiety about his wife, but it did not even occur to him to ask this creature about her. He said, instead, 'I want you to leave. We'll communicate with you when you're a million miles out in space.'

  The handsome human face of the other broke into a disdainful smile. 'I'll go. But I sense in you a plan to learn from me where I come from. That will never happen.'

  Cemp replied in a level tone, 'We'll see what two thousand Silkies can get out of you.'

  The being's skin glistened with health, shone with confidence and power. He said, 'Perhaps I should inform you that we Kibmadine have achieved a total control of all the forces that Silkies control only partially.'

  Cemp said, 'Many rigidities can envelop one flexibility.'

  The other said in an uncompromising voice, 'Don't attack me. The price would be too high.'

  He started to turn away. And there was a moment, then, when Cemp had another thought, another feeling — a reluctance to let this being go without some attempt to reach across the abyss that separated them. Because this was man's first contact with an alien intelligence. For a few fleeting seconds, Cemp remembered the thousand dreams that human beings had had of such a meeting. But then his hesitation came to its inevitable end as the infinitely hostile reality moved in to fill the endless void between them.

  Instants later, the alien was out on the path, dissolving, changing — and gone.

  Cemp contacted Baxter and said, 'Line me up with another Silkie so that he can take over. I'm really awfully close to my change.'

  He was lined up through the Silkie communications hub with a Silkie named Jedd. Meanwhile, Baxter said, 'I'm on my way over. I have been given a lot of governmental power.'

  Cemp found Joanne in one of the spare bedrooms. She lay on the bed, fully dressed, breathing slowly and deeply. He sent a quick flow of energy through her brain. The reflexes that were stirred reassured him that she was merely sleeping. He also picked up some of the alien energy that was still in her cells. The information superimposed on this energy told a story that made it instantly obvious why she was still alive: The Kibmadine had used her living body as a model for his duplication of her.

  On this occasion, at least, the creature had been after bigger game — a Silkie.

  Cemp did not try to rouse the sleeping woman, but he was greatly relieved as he went out into the patio, which over looked a white, sandy beach and the timeless blue ocean beyond. He sat there until presently Baxter joined him.

  They had already communicated mentally, and now Baxter said, 'I sense a doubt in you.'

  Cemp nodded.

  Baxter asked gently, 'What do you fear?'

  'Death!'

  It was a feeling deep inside him.

  Sitting there, he made up his mind, for the second time since he had become involved with the alien, to die if necessary. And with that decision, he began to turn on all his receptors, after first carefully tuning out local Earth noise. TV, radio, radar, innumerable energies from machines — these had to be shut away from him. Swiftly, then, he began to 'hear' the signals from throughout space.

  Long before Silkies it had been known that space was alive with messages; the entire sidereal universe pulsed with an in credible number of vibrations. Hour on hour and year by year, Silkies lived with that ceaseless 'noise,' and most of their early 'training was entirely directed to the development of selective sleep and rest and wakefulness mechanisms for each receptor.

  Now, those which were asleep awakened; those which were at rest, became alert.

  His brain came to peak awareness, and he began to sense the near stars, the distant stars, the clusters, the galaxies. Every star had its own complex signal. Nowhere was there a duplication or even a close similarity.

  The universe that he tuned in upon was composed entirely of individuals. Cemp appraised the distance of each star, the uniqueness of each signal. Friendly space world! Every star being exactly and precisely what it was and where it was gave meaning to the immense stellar universe. There was no chaos. He experienced his own location in space and time, and it gave him a certainty of the basic rightness of things.

  * * *

  VII

  CEMP'S PROBING awareness came back from its far-flung ranging to a spot about a million miles from Earth. There he paused to let the signals come in from all the space between that point and Earth. Without opening his eyes, he said to Baxter, 'I don't read him. He must have gone around the planet and put the mass of Earth between us. Are the reflectors ready?'

  Baxter spoke over a phone line that had been kept open for him. Previously alerted Telstar and astronomical satellites were placed at Cemp's disposition. Through one of the reflectors, he focused on the invading entity.

  Cemp said to the alien, 'Above everything else, we want information.'

  The alien said, 'Perhaps I should tell you our history.' And so Cemp was given the story of the eternal lovers, more than a million beings who moved from one planetary system to another, each time altering themselves to the form of the inhabitants and establishing a love relationship with them. But it was a love relationship that meant pain and death for their love objects. Only twice had the lovers met beings of sufficient power to repel them. In each case, the Kibmadine had destroyed the entire system.

  Di-isarinn finished, 'No additional information is available to you.'

  Cemp broke contact. A shaken Baxter said, 'Do you think that was true information?'

  Cemp answered that he thought it was. He finished with finality, 'Our job is to find out one thing — where does he come from? — and then destroy him.'

  'But how do you propose to do this?'

  It was a good question. His single clash with the creature had brought him up hard against a wall of incredible power.

  Cemp sank lower into his settee and with closed eyes considered the problem of a race of beings who had complete control of body change. Many times in those long duty watches out in space, he had pondered such possibilities; for the cell could grow and ungrow, divide, split off, fall away, and re-form, all within a few seconds. In the twilight zone of life where the virus, the bacteriums, and the cell had their complex being, the enormous speed of change had made possible the almost instantaneous orderly altering of human to Silkie and back again.

  The invader could apparently change to an infinite number of forms with equal rapidity, assuming any body shape at will.

  But the logic of levels applied to the Kibmadine's every action.

  From somewhere behind Cemp, Baxter said, 'Are you sure?' His voice sounded incredulous.

  Cemp had two reactions to the question — extreme joy at the hope that his analysis brought ... and a stronger conviction. He said aloud, 'Yes, logic applies. But for him we'll need the closest contact of the energies involved. Inches would be better than feet, feet better than yards. So I'll have to go out there in person.'

  'Out where?' Baxter asked. He sounded astounded.

  'To his ship.'

  'Do you think he has a ship?'

  'Of course he has one. Anything else would be impractical for his operations.'

  Cemp was patient as he made his explanation. He had observed that even the Special People had exaggerated ideas on such matters. They tended to accept that Silkies were much more capable than they really were. But the logic of it was simple — coming in toward a sun, one could utilise its full gravitational pull to get up speed. Right now the Kibmadine would be 'climbing the ladder' of the planets, cutting off the sun's gravity from
behind, opening up to the pull of Jupiter and the outer planets.

  No sensible being would try to bridge the distances between stars by such a method. So there was a ship. There had to be.

  Cemp said, 'Order a spaceship for me, complete with a tank of water that can be moved.'

  'You expect to change before you get there?'

  'It'll happen any minute.'

  Amazed, Baxter said, 'You intend to confront the most powerful being that we can imagine without a single bit of energy of your own available?'

  'Yes,' said Cemp. 'It's the only way we'll get him within inches of the energy source I want installed in the tank. For heaven's sake, man, get started.'

  Reluctantly, Baxter reached for the phone.

  * * *

  VIII

  AS CEMP had expected, he began his change en route. By the time he was put aboard the Kibmadine ship he was already in a tank of water in his first compulsive change, which was to the fish state.

  He would be a class-B Silkie for slightly more than two months.

  As Di-isarinn came finally to the tiny ship in its remote orbit beyond Pluto, he noticed at once that the entrance mechanism had been tampered with, and he sensed the Cemp's presence aboard.

  In the course of countless millenia, Di-isarinn's reflexes had fallen into disuse, so he had no anxiety. But he did recognise that here were all the appearances of a trap.

  In a flash, he checked to ensure that there was no source of energy aboard that could destroy him. There was none — no relay; nothing.

  A faint energy emanated from the tank, but it had no purpose that Di-isarinn could detect.

  He wondered scathingly if these human beings somehow expected to work a bluff whereby he would be impelled by uncertainty to stay away from his own ship.

  With that thought, he activated the entrance mechanism, entered, transformed to human form, walked over to the tank that stood in the center of the tiny cabin, and looked down at Cemp, who lay at the bottom.